Norwescon wrapup

I've finally recovered enough from the 4-day geekstravaganza that was Norwescon 35 to post about it. Any of you who saw me there can vouch for how much fun I had, since I pretty much walked around the whole time with a big, stupid grin on my face. Norwescon is nominally a science fiction convention, but one of the things I love about it is how wide-open it is in terms of programming and community.

First, a couple of giant thank-yous: To the nerdtastic Ashley Cook, who was kind enough to put me on a bunch of comics panels again this year. Read her stuff over at Giant Fire Breathing Robot, everyone. And thanks also to the other programming leads who gave me a shot — I found myself on a zombie panel and two publishing panels without even knowing who to bribe.

Muffy! Also, this is apparently the only picture I took at the entire convention.

Another big thanks goes to my good friend Muffy Morrigan, who carried ZN at her booth in the dealer room. The big news here is that Muffy's amazing new book, The Sail Weaver , just came out last week, and she damn near ran through her entire stock at the con. Go get a copy!

On Friday afternoon I got the chance to moderate a panel on the recent DC Comics reboot and, despite some confusion about wether I was planning to present a slideshow on the topic (for the record, I WAS NOT), I thought it wend really well. My fellow panelists consisted of writer and comics critic Spencer Ellsworth (who was so funny on my X-men panel last year that I tried to weasel myself onto as much of his stuff as possible this year), Cobalt City creator and Timid Pirate publisher Nathan Crowder (a good friend and my personal DC Comics guru) and Kate Merriwether Lynch, co-owner of comics and game shop The Dreaming.

Saturday brought the first live reading I've ever done of my own work, and it was a blast. Thanks mostly to the tireless efforts of my friends Geoff and Jason, the room was nicely full, and I read from the about-to-be-published Thrusts of Justice, with choices made by audience vote. I will tell you this: When you're writing humor, there's nothing quite as gratifying as a room breaking out in laughter at your jokes. The crowd was extremely kind — after the first chuckle line my stomach butterflies pretty much settled, and it was smooth sailing from there. (For the record, we had a decent run, but they went a bit too ambitious on their first supervillain encounter and wound up being punched to death by the world's mightiest douchebag).

Later that evening, after maybe a little too much time at AN AMAZING SCOTCH-TASTING ROOM PARTY, I did a 10pm panel about supervillains that I wasn't sure what to expect from. The room turned out to be packed solid, and it was probably the most fun I had all weekend. Ashley moderated, and I was joined once again by Spencer (my devious plan was clearly working) and Clinton Boomer, who writes for Paizo and has produced something like one million D&D Public Service Announcements. We rhapsodized about the unrecognized genius of Calendar Man, and Clinton kept offering $100,000 to anyone who could successfully make Aquaman or Moon Knight cool. He also treated us to his Invisible Christopher Walken impression later in the bar upstairs.

I know I'm forgetting a bunch of people, but I got to meet folks like Nox creator Shon C. Bury, and author Leah Cutter, and say hi to people I met at NWC last year, like KISW's Reverend En Fuego and author Dave Page, who is at least partly responsible for the self-legendary R.L. McSterlingthong. I also spent some quality time with my ZomBcon boothmates, author Katie Cord and her husband Tony. And we managed to snatch up what I think was the only copy of Honeyed Words that J.A. Pitts (who technically I think I met a Orycon one year) had on hand.

Of course, Dawn Marie and I tried our damnedest to monopolize the waking ours of our delightful Canadian friends Kelly and Alyx (that's A.M. Dellamonica if you're nasty) — you should know that Alyx's second book Blue Magic comes out this very day from Tor. Seriously, the only excuse you could possibly have for not abandoning this post and immediately rushing out to buy Blue Magic RIGHT NOW is if you have yet to read Indigo Springs, to which it is a sequel.

In other news, I AM THE WORST at remembering to take pictures, but you can see all sorts of good Norwescon pics via their Flickr feed (internet to the rescue, woo).

Okay, the length of this post is already giving me con-exhaustion flashbacks (seriously, the 4-day party business is a young person's game) so I'm going to end this here (and doubtlessly rush back to add at least some of the wonderful and charming people I've left out as soon as I hit the "post" button). At the NWC35 closing ceremonies, the various guests of honor onstage kept returning to a similar theme: Norwescon really is a rare and unique beast, and I'm happy to have it right here in my own back yard.

You can bet your ass I'll be back for NWC36.